I've been enjoying the peace and the slow pace of these past few days. The peace that comes when the busy time of the holidays have calmed. The days have been full of family and friends and long walks by the lake, there has been lots and lots of knitting and coffee drinking and enjoying the twinkling of lights as I sit by the Christmas tree. I have become entranced watching my boys moving gracefully about the living room completely immersed in their imaginative play, unaware of their audience. This is truly a beautiful time of the holidays.

We spent a few days out of town had a lovely Christmas with my family. I hope your holiday was Merry and full of love. xx

Margaret of We Bloom Here hosted a swap of little angels and has connected bloggers from all over the world. You can see all the beautiful hand created angels right here.

Here is what I made for my partners (most of whom live in Australia).

It's funny how these little angels all started out to be the same, but as I individually hand-stitched each one, they seemed to take on their own personalities. I guess this is just how it is when creating a doll.

Each one is stitched from white wool and vintage trim embellishments and beads. Each is holding something unique in their hand or arms: a cluster of bells, a mother-of-pearl star, a vintage stamen bundle and an acorn bird nest with eggs.

I've already received two lovely angels and will be sure to post them once they all arrive.

There is only one week until Christmas and I'm finding it difficult to get into the spirit of the holidays. I blame it on the weather. We had lots of rain last week, melting most of the little snow we had, and today we're expecting highs in the forties! This is rare for a Minnesota December.

I've limited the amount of holiday decorations on display in our home this year, opting for simplicity. The tree in our living room that is usually heavily adorned with ornaments has only lights, and this is what makes me happy for this year.

What also makes me happy are these few things scattered about the house: an ornament that belonged to my mother, a thrifted wooden shepard with his sheep, and Los Reyes Magos (our family celebrates Three King's Day).

So maybe it's not quite true to say I'm not feeling it, I'm just feeling it differently than I have in the past.

We had a birthday celebration at my preschool yesterday. A brother and sister both turned five. Five. Such a magical age. It means they will be starting kindergarten next year. I wanted to make them something special, something that would maybe remind them of their days at Willow House. There were so many ideas spinning through my head and I finally decided to make each one a little doll.

Not in the photo is the mini dried poppy pod that I placed in the arm of each doll. Poppies grow all over our preschool garden and I can thank this now five-year-old girl for helping to plant them. One of her favorite things to do in the backyard is shake the seeds out of the pods once they have dried. I can't wait to see how many blooms we'll get next year and you can bet I'll be missing her when they flower.

Last summer the children's mother donated heavily to our annual garage sale fundraiser and as I was sorting through some of the items she brought I found these two blouses she no longer wore.

Pink is a favorite color of the twins. I put them aside thinking the fabric was too sweet to give up for the sale and knew immediately I was going to somehow use it for the kids. It's not too obvious as the dolls are pretty small, and the print on the floral fabric is large, but I used a piece of their mom's blouse to make the shirt of each doll. A little bit of their mama in each one.

On Saturday I joyfully made my way to Jen's house for an evening of friendship, adult conversation, delicious treats and garland making. She hosted yet another wonderful pARTy at her home and all we girls had to do was show up and begin creating. Jen provided all the materials and inspiration for us to get busy making. (Thanks again Jen!!) It was just what I needed...being with these women feeds my soul. See Jen's post about it here.

I started small, making this sweet mini star strand.

I then moved up to the snowflake punch and used grid paper over an aqua circle.

It now adorns my mantel.

As long as I was hanging garlands, I put up this one my boy and I made oh-so-long-ago.

I do love garlands (and even have a pinterest board for inspiration). Do you have a favorite you'd care to share?

Each year after the Winter Garden Festival at the preschool, we simply gather all the pine boughs used to create the spiral and bring them into the backyard. As you can imagine, the children invent endless ways to bring these branches into play...

...they have "planted" them in the snow to build forests...

...or have used all the branches to make one tree... ...or they may simply play being a tree.

They may build a house...

...nests, beds and even a play spiral.

They like to play peek-a-boo...

...and they once even made them into oars for their "snow boat".

Last year we had quite an abundance and a nice variety of boughs that came from the farm, so before we used them in the backyard, the kids created swags to take home to their parents. So much fun with so very little.

For the second year, we hosted a Holiday Craft Fair at my preschool. I can see that every year it will get easier. I'm always learning something new with each experience. I am grateful to all the vendors who participated, including friends Jen, Anna and Jenn for helping make it a successful event by setting up beautiful tables full of handmade treasures and providing snacks and treats to help make it a party.

I scrambled to create the few things for my table...not a good way to go about it. I ended up with just a handful of pieces to offer and dozens of half-finished things. Better planning? More time? Not sure about the best way to go about it.

I am so thankful to Jen for taking pictures. I never picked up my camera once the entire night. See her sweet summary of the event here.

Of course I did some of my own shopping. I fell in love with Karen's scarves immediately. (It's not like I needed a new scarf...especially once I finish these.) Her work is so beautiful!!

This is the one I couldn't pass up...it matches my reversible wool coat perfectly.

My seven-year-old fell in love with one of Julie's spirit dolls and I thought it so sweet that Papa had to get it for him.

It was a wonderful event and for any local vendors, we'd love you have you join us next year.

Last week was a blur. After returning home from our family vacation, there was only a short five days to prepare for the weekend. At my preschool we hosted our Second Annual Holiday Craft Fair on Friday (more on that tomorrow). We have to clear out our big play space to make room for our Winter Garden Festival anyway so feel this is the best time to invite parents and friends to gather in a social setting.

I exhausted myself preparing for all the events which just made me appreciate all the more the peace and the quiet of our Advent Spiral last night.

In school last week, the children made their votive candles.

If you are interested in a little more information about why we do this festival, I wrote more about it here and there are more photos here.Do you know the poem, Just Delicate Needles, by Rolf Jacobsen? It make me think of the children, just delicate little things they are. They come to this quiet and contemplative festival and need to summon all the courage in their small bodies to carry their candle through the spiral for the angel to light. Some do it quite bravely, others may need a little encouragement and there may be couple who just can't do it at all. It's a beautiful thing to watch how they face this challenge with complete sincerity. I get tears in my eyes every time.

Just Delicate Needles—

It's so delicate, the light.And there's so little of it. The darkis huge.Just delicate needles, the light,in an endless night.And it has such a long way to gothrough such desolate space.

So let's be gentle with it.Cherish it.So it will come again in the morning.We hope.